Contents

Dylan Krieger (Bitsie Tulloch) is a self-proclaimed writer who works as an associate editor at a magazine called Attitude. She keeps a video blog on the social networking website Quarterlife.

Debra Locatelli (Michelle Lombardo) is Dylan's best friend and roommate. She works in her father's appliance store. Debra has anxiety problems.

Lisa Herford (Maïté Schwartz) shares the apartment with Dylan and Debra. She is in acting school and works as a bartender. Lisa also reluctantly becomes a singer for a band despite her low self-confidence.

Jed Berland (Scott Michael Foster) is next-door neighbor to the girls and a film maker fresh out of film school.

Danny Franklin (David Walton) is Jed's business partner and roommate. He is also Debra's ex-boyfriend; Danny and Debra broke up after he cheated on her.

Andy Melman (Kevin Christy) is Jed and Danny's 'sidekick', assisting them in the production of their videos.

Eric Greensohn (Mike Faiola) is an old friend of Debra's who comes to visit her and then stays to pursue a relationship with Dylan. Eric is an environmental activist.

NBC announced on November 17, 2007, that the network had acquired the rights to air Quarterlife on broadcast television in early 2008, after the episodes have been broadcast on the Internet.[2][3] In February 2008, NBC announced that Quarterlife would premiere on Tuesday, February 26, 2008, with the show moving to Sunday nights immediately afterwards.[4] The show garnered dismal ratings for its first episode, approaching levels not seen on NBC since the XFL, and teen demographic and general household ratings lower than a Democratic presidential debate airing at the same time on sibling cable network MSNBC.[5] NBC announced that the series was canceled after airing only one episode.[6]

Its remaining episodes would air on its sibling channel Bravo following the NBC cancellation.[7] The show only had 3.1 million viewers in its debut—the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour by an NBC show in at least 17 years. The show also got pummeled in the adults 18-49 demographic, where it managed only a 1.6 rating.[6][8] The show aired on E! in Canada in simulcast, but all reference to the show has been removed from their website since the cancellation. Full episodes can still be viewed on the NBC and Fox sponsored video site Hulu.com.

The first season was released online in 36 parts, each approximately eight minutes, from November 2007 to March 2008. Each eight-minute episode of the series premiered nearly simultaneously on MySpace and the official Quarterlife site. It garnered the third-highest views of any scripted series in Myspace history. These were combined into six hour-long episodes for television.

In five months, total online views for the series—on Myspace, Quarterlife, and YouTube—were over 9 million. After the series was picked up by NBC, some of the hour-long episodes (as edited for broadcast) were made available on the NBC and Hulu websites. During this time, Herskowitz claimed the show accrued an average of 300k views per episode.[9] After cancelation by NBC Episodes 2-6 were broadcast back-to-back on Bravo on March 9, 2008.